“What are they shooting?” Toni asked.
Diederik made a face. “A reality show. About a Mississippi family and their nine-year-old wunderkind, Tammy Susie. Though what makes her a wunderkind isn’t entirely clear to me.” He sighed. “We’re all hoping they’ll be finished shooting soon. They’re… a challenging group.” Diederik stopped abruptly. “Please don’t tell anyone I said that.”
“Said what?” I grinned.
Diederik gave me a grateful smile. “Just let me know if they bother you.”
“Why would they bother us?” Bailey asked.
Diederik sighed. “Because they have the suite next to yours. It’s one of our best suites, and all the others in that class were taken.”
“We’ll be fine,” Toni said. The steel in her voice told me she intended to deal with any issues the Tammy Susie clan might pose herself. I smiled inwardly. If they did cause any problems, it wouldn’t be for long. Toni gets what she wants, and she gets it now. Last summer, we’d gone to a Steely Dan concert at the Greek, a beautiful outdoor amphitheater. The band had barely played the first notes of “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number” when a couple in front of us stood up and started to dance (badly), which completely blocked our view of the stage. Toni leaned forward and said something to them. After a quick backward glance, the male pulled his girlfriend down onto the bench so fast they bounced. Toni wouldn’t tell me what she said, but the couple stayed in their seats for the rest of the concert. Bottom line: the proximity of the Tammy Susie company didn’t worry me.
We got out of the elevator at the top floor, which was occupied by only our and Tammy Susie’s suites. When I got inside, I found out why. Our suite was probably bigger than most single-family homes: three spacious bedrooms-each with its own bathroom-a dining room, a living room with a wet bar, and a wide balcony that wrapped around the entire suite and afforded an unobstructed 270-degree view of the ocean. I’d never seen anything like it.
Personally, I would’ve been happy to just plop down on one of the plushy lounge chairs on that balcony for the rest of the day. But Toni wasn’t having it. The door had barely closed behind Diederik when she gave an authoritative clap and ordered, “Let’s hit it. Into our suits and onto that beach. Now.”
There’s no point arguing when she’s in a mood like this. We were suited up-our glowing winter-white bodies tastefully covered in sarongs-and marching toward the sand in under ten minutes.
“I’m going native,” Bailey said, pointing to a grass-roofed open bar. “Anyone want to join me in a fruity umbrella drink?”
“Some of us can’t afford the calories,” Toni said, shooting daggers at Bailey. “Get me a vodka soda.”
Bailey is one of those tall, lean types who can eat like a stevedore and never gain a pound. Having a metabolism so despicably impervious to weight gain is unforgivable. Yet we forgive her. And we tell her just how hard we plan to laugh when it all catches up to her. I saluted and fell in behind Bailey while Toni went to claim us a real umbrella and some lounge chairs. Bailey and I reached the open-air hut that housed the bar, and she leaned in toward the bartender, a short, dark-skinned young man with soulful eyes. “I’ll have a piña colada and two Ketel One and sodas with lime for my friends. Oh, and a bag of those potato chips, please.”
“Must you?” I asked.
“What?” Bailey replied, feigning innocence. “You don’t have to have any.”
I looked at her, exasperated. “Yeah, right.” Bailey was well aware that I could never resist.
Toni had scored us a primo spot close, but not too close, to the water. A gentle breeze blew the scent of lemon blossoms our way, thanks to all the lemon trees that had been planted around the hotel. The sun was just warm enough to feel good on our backs, and the sparkling water looked enticing. Perfect. We’d just dug our feet into the sand and raised our glasses to toast the beginning of our Caribbean island vacay when a skinny young woman in flowered Bermuda shorts and a T-shirt that said REALITY SUX scurried over to us. She darted a glance around the beach and nervously tucked a hank of long brown hair behind her left ear, then thrust out her hand. Her words shot out at us as though they were spring-loaded.
“Hi, I’m Erica. Erica Garber. Pleased to meet you and sorry for interrupting and everything. I’m not usually like this, seriously, I’m not. But I saw you guys in the lobby and I heard you were cops and I…” She finally paused, then swallowed with a near audible gulp and dragged in a heavy breath. “I need help. Seriously, big-time.”
“Then you’ll need to call the local police,” Bailey said. “We’re just-”
“I can’t go to the local police! I’ll be fired, I’ll never work again, my career will be ruined! You’ve got to help me.” She gave us a beseeching look that would’ve made Grover Norquist raise taxes.
I couldn’t stop myself. “What’s the problem?”
“I’m a production assistant on Tammy Susie and Company. I’m Tammy Susie’s wrangler-”
“Whose… what?” Toni wrinkled her brow.
“I’m Tammy Susie’s… well, basically, I’m her gofer.” Uttering those words unleashed Erica’s pent-up frustration. “My parents went into hock to put me through Harvard, I graduated with honors, won an award for my screenplay in drama lit class, and now I fetch caramel corn and Slurpees for a nine-year-old beauty-pageant runner-up.” She held up a hand. “Excuse me, sorry. Anyway, we’re taping here because the family wanted a vacation, so the producers decided to kill two birds with one stone by making their vacation an episode. The reason I’m jumping you like this is… she’s gone missing, and if I don’t find her quick, I’ll be out of a job.”
Oh, and a missing child was kinda bad news too. But I got why she couldn’t afford to call in the police. “As of when?” I asked.
“As of an hour and a half ago. She’s wandered off before, and the show gives her a limo to take her pretty much wherever and whenever, but-”
“So she might just be rolling around the island with her chauffeur,” Bailey said.
“She might, but I just… have a bad feeling about the way it all went down-”
“Which is?” I asked.
Erica swallowed again and took a deep breath. “We went shopping… she wanted to get ‘in character’ for her scenes with a fortune-teller-”
“Why on earth would you want to do a show with one of those crackpots?” Toni asked, incredulous.
“Fortune-telling is big on the island. The producers thought it would be fun to show all the high jinks Tammy Susie and her family got into. Anyway, Tammy Susie decided she wanted to wear something ‘Gypsy’ for the show, so I had to take her shopping. I think it was just an excuse to go to the Royal Plaza Mall. She loves that place.”
“Where’s the Royal Plaza Mall?” I asked. From what I saw on the way to the hotel, there was no shopping mall nearby.
“Downtown, in Oranjestad. The place looks like Disneyland… on crack. Tammy Susie loves it. We wound up at this little boutique. Tammy found a couple of skirts she liked, so she went to the dressing room to try them on. I stayed right outside… well, pretty close. I just went over to the jewelry counter for, like, maybe five minutes at most, but-”
“How’d you get to the mall?” I asked. “Did you take the limo?”
“No, we took a bus. Her choice. She said she was tired of always riding in a limo.”
“Who can blame her?” Toni asked, deadpan.
But the sarcasm was lost on Erica, who was practically wringing her hands by now.
“When you went back to check on her, she was gone,” I said.